Archive for ‘Wuhan’

The bonhomie witnessed between India and China over the last one year after the informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan April last year has clearly evaporated following the Chinese action

Even as China asserted on Thursday that the ‘Wuhan Spirit’ was still on, there is a sense of betrayal in New Delhi over Beijing’s decision to stand by its ‘all-weather friend’ Pakistan by blocking the designation of JeM chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN Security Council.

The bonhomie witnessed between India and China over the last one year after the informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan April last year has clearly evaporated following the Chinese action.

Amid the growing clamour in India for boycotting China after it used its veto power to block listing of Masood Azhar as a global terrorist, New Delhi has expressed disappointment over Beijing’s move while reaffirming its determination to pursue all avenues to bring the JeM chief to justice for terror attacks in different parts of India.

A number of reasons, including the significant role Pakistan plays in China’s ties with the Islamic world and Beijing’s anxiety over spill-over effect of a ban on Azhar in China’s own restive Muslim-dominated Xinjiang region, could have played a role in Beijing deciding to yet again stonewall any action by the UNSC against the JeM chief, observers say.

Despite its burgeoning trade relationship with India, China has never hidden the fact that it needed Pakistan more than any other country for achieving its geo-strategic goals in the region. Pakistan’s importance for China has increased manifold in recent years in view of the heavy economic and manpower investments it has made in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as part of President Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Sources said it was quite clear to New Delhi over the past few days that China was adopting double standards in the global fight against terrorism only to shield Pakistan. China, they said, could no longer take shelter under ‘lame excuses’ like India had not provided any ‘updated material’ on Azhar’s terrorist activities in India which could compel Beijing to reconsider its position on the JeM chief.

Sources pointed out that India had submitted to China and other key nations ‘clinching and irrefutable’ evidence linking JeM to terror attacks in India, including the Pulwama attack. All other members of the UNSC, including those in the non-permanent category, solidly backed India’s effort to get the JeM chief banned but China put a spanner in their works yet again, they regretted.

The US, meanwhile, said responsible UNSC members might be forced to other actions at the Security Council if Beijing continued to block Masood’s designation.

China’s veto against banning Masood Azhar has once again highlighted the deep-rooted suspicion and mistrust between India and China on strategic issues, particularly the fight against terrorism. Despite pledging to work with India in combating terror, China has done precious little to assuage India’s concerns over terrorism emanating from Pakistan.

China has, in fact, praised Pakistan on many occasions for its role in the global war against terrorism. Beijing’s contention has been that Pakistan itself has been one of the main victims of terrorism and it must be supported in combating the menace.

There is also a feeling in Chinese circles that the situation in Jammu and Kashmir is the prime reason for terrorism in India. The argument being advanced by them is that while Kashmir is a disputed territory, Xinjiang is a province of China and, therefore, a comparison can not be drawn between the two regions.

WUHAN, March 9 (Xinhua) — The city of Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province, will invest 40 billion yuan (about 6 billion U.S. dollars) to provide key support to the development of high-tech infrastructure by 2022, local authorities said.

The province and its capital will forge ahead with high-tech industries by raising a 10-billion-yuan fund per year for major projects, platforms, industrial parks, equipment and talent teams, from 2019 to 2022.

So far, a research facility of precise gravity measurement, a national major science and technology infrastructure, is under construction in the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan.

In the past few years, the city has completed a pulsed high magnetic field facility and opened China’s first national bio-safety level four lab, which requires the highest level of biological safety.

Wuhan will work with universities, institutes and enterprises to achieve great breakthroughs in various fields including integrated electromagnetic energy, optoelectronics, microelectronics, geomatics, and new materials, as well as build national laboratories.

Data released at the city’s science and technology conference for 2019 on Friday showed that the value added of the hi-tech industries in Wuhan exceeded 300 billion yuan last year, accounting for 20.56 percent of the city’s gross domestic product.

With 3,536 high-tech enterprises in total, the city is making efforts to build itself into a tech hub of the country.

Chinese scientists are appealing for a bigger say over research funding as they buckle under a rigid and bureaucratic application system.

The appeal from delegates to the country’s peak advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, comes as the central government prepares to launch a pilot project that will give research teams greater flexibility in the way funds are used.

Despite slowing economic growth, the central government also plans to increase the budget for science and technology by 13.4 per cent this year to 354.31 billion yuan (US$52.7 billion) as Beijing tries to challenge the United States in the race for high technology.

But researchers have been hampered by a funding structure that demands they clearly state the use of their research and submit a detailed plan with a deadline for delivery of results.

Application rules have become stricter in the last few years, partly a result of a crackdown on corruption, which has led to a dozen university presidents and top scientists being arrested for embezzling research and infrastructure funding.

CPPCC delegate Yuan Zhiming, an agricultural scientist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan, said he spent so much time filling out funding applications that he did not have time to do any research.

“It’s not easy to complete the budget with detailed outcomes, because I don’t already know my research results,” Yuan said in an open panel discussion on the sidelines of the CPPCC.

Wang Liming, a CPPCC delegate from China National Nuclear Corporation, agreed, saying funding applications were too onerous and inflexible. “Money earmarked for buying soy sauce cannot be used to buy vinegar,” he joked.

People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, reported in December 2016 that it took a scientist a month to finish an annual report for a regular research project and much longer for a major one.

The fears about more bureaucracy in research intensified last year when the National Natural Science Foundation – which manages science funding and promotes research – was downgraded and put under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The authorities said the change was aimed at strengthening the government’s “research-driven development strategy” and “optimising the distribution of funding on science and technology”, while scientists said it meant funding approval would be more stringent.

But senior Chinese officials said they understood the need to speed up research for China to transform itself into an innovation powerhouse.

Science and Technology Minister Wang Zhigang said on Friday that China would overhaul the way funding was managed to give researchers more incentives.

“The ministry [of science and technology] has done a series of things to ease the burden on researchers, so that they will not be bothered by forms, reimbursements, titles and prizes and have more time to do real research,” Wang said.

“The upcoming reforms will be centred on how to ignite researchers’ enthusiasm, initiative and creativity.”

Aerial photo taken on Feb. 12, 2019 shows emergency worker Dong Jinbing (L) inspecting the high voltage wire with his workmate Wang Wensheng on the power transmission tower in the mountain area of Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province.

A team of electricians was dispatched to repair a high voltage wire that was broken due to thick layer of ice accumulation. After one day’s work on the over 40-meter-high power transmission tower in bad weather condition, the team succeeded in fixing the failed power system that lowered the trains’ speed causing delay during the post-holiday travel peak. This year’s Spring Festival travel rush started on Jan. 21 and will last till March 1, with railway trips expected to hit 413 million in total, up 8.3 percent. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

Social credit system: China’s richest regions are also home to the most blacklisted firms

22 Feb 2019

A real property agent checks a property advertising board in Beijing. According to a report by the Chinese government, property brokerages are among the country’s least scrupulous group of firms. Photo: Agence France-Presse

China’s wealthiest regions also have the largest number of untrustworthy businesses, according to the government’s social credit system, which rates citizens and companies based on their behaviour.

Jiangsu, the country’s second largest provincial economy – 9.26 trillion yuan (US$1.37 trillion) – accounted for 16.7 per cent of the discredited businesses that were added to the national blacklist last year, more than any other region.

According to a report compiled by the National Public Credit Information Centre that is backed by China’s state planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, Guangdong is next in line.

Guangdong is China’s most prosperous province, Guangdong, but is also home to 12.77 per cent of the total 3.59 million blacklisted firms. The southern province had a gross domestic product of 9.73 trillion yuan last year.

In third spot was Zhejiang, the prosperous province just south of Shanghai, while the capital city of Beijing was ranked fifth. These places together contributed slightly more than 30 per cent of China’s gross domestic product (GDP) last year.

By naming and shaming the millions of Chinese businesses and individuals on the annual blacklist, Beijing hopes to boost “trustworthiness” in Chinese society. Under the system, each of its 1.4 billion citizens is expected to receive a personal trustworthiness score.

“In more developed coastal provinces, businesses have long operated in the grey area between emerging China and established Hong Kong,” said Brock Silvers, managing director of Kaiyuan Capital, a Shanghai-based financial advisory firm.

Silvers said the situation evoked the Chinese saying: “Heaven is high and the Emperor is far away”, which alludes to local officials’ tendency to disregard central government’s directives.

While it was previously not such a faux pas to engage in “untrustworthy” behaviour in attaining economic development, things are now different.

China’s social credit system shows its teeth, banning millions from taking flights, trains

“The ability to cut corners in search of profit isn’t as prized in China’s modern economy, and many of those old traits can now lead companies to be added to Beijing’s blacklist,” Silvers said.

Among the firms named in the hall of shame is Chuangyue Energy Group, from northwest Xinjiang, which topped the list of new cases involving at least 500 million yuan in fraudulent activity.

Chuangyue and its legal representative Qin Yong were reprimanded by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2016 for failing to disclose transactions on time. The transaction involved changes to the shareholding structure of a listed firm in which Chuangyue held interest in, state media reported.

Also on the list was property developer Zhonghong Holding, which was delisted from the Shenzhen exchange late-last year after its shares fell below the par value of 1 yuan for 20 consecutive days.

Zhonghong had posted massive losses, failed to repay loans and halted development projects during 2018.

A typical area of fraud cited in the report was bogus advertising, with the biggest number of discredited companies located Shanghai, China’s most commercial city.

Property brokerage was a hotbed industry for fraudsters. The report named and shamed two agents in Wuhan, An Yi Real Estate Brokerage and Hong Run De Real Estate Brokerage, which Chinese netizens described as “black brokers”.

In one case, Hong Run De subdivided one flat to lease without the owner’s knowledge and consent. To terminate the contract, the owner had to pay “compensation” of 30,000 yuan before they could reclaim the flat.

Quanjian Group, a maker of herbal medicines, was accused of making false marketing claims about the benefits of a product that a four-year-old cancer patient drank.

Health care companies are among the worst performing in China, according to a report on the country’s social credit index. Photo: Agence France-Presse

Share:

Changsheng Bio-Technology, the major Chinese manufacturer of rabies vaccines, was fined US$1.3 billion in October after it was found to have fabricated records.

A total of 1,282 P2P operators, more than half located in Zhejiang, Guangdong and Shanghai, were placed on the blacklist because they could not repay investors, or were involved in illegal fundraising.

While more individuals and companies were added to the blacklist, others were also removed – 2.17 million. Those removed had paid taxes owed or fines imposed.